Tag Archives: england

My mother was a Culpepper. I’ve done tons of research on them. I’ve even written four books about my 10th great grandpa, John Culpepper.

John’s uncle owned a house called Hollingbourne Manor in Kent, England – about five miles outside the town of Maidstone – about two miles from another family home, Leeds Castle. The house, and I use that term loosely, was acquired in 1590 by Francis Culpepper of Greenway court. It was bequeathed to his son Thomas the Elder, and later to his son, Thomas Jr. who was a knight. The last owner was Thomas Jr.’s son William. It was in the family for about 125 years.

Thomas the Elder built a chapel in the local Hollingbourne church, All Saints Church, as a monument to his wife Elizabeth. In the marble effigy, Lady Elizabeth’s hands each wear a ring tied by a single cord that disappears up the sleeve of her dress. The epitaph written by her husband reads: Optima Faemina, Optima Coniux, Optima Mater, which means: The best of women, the best of wives, the best of mothers.

There are many lead coffins beneath the chapel containing the remains of various Culpeppers. The entrance has now been sealed. The window in the chapel at the foot of Lady Elizabeth’s coffin bears the Culpepper coat of arms. It is the white square in the upper left with the red diagonal line.

Since I wrote about Whitehall Palace yesterday and mentioned one of its owners, Thomas Wolsey, I thought I’d stick here in W for a minute and go a little more in depth about Mr. Wolsey, his amazing rise to status and his total and swift downfall.

Thomas was born the son of a butcher in England in March 1473. In his twenties, he studied theology, eventually becoming a priest and a chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1509, he went to work for King Henry VIII. That’s where the fun begins. Keep in mind, young Henry was only 18 years old at the time, and I’m sure the 36-year-old Wolsey figured he’d lead the king in righteousness with his mature and prudent ways.

Things went along rather well for Wolsey. You saw his house in the Whitehall Palace blog. Obviously, he was well taken care of by the king. Having the young king’s ear, Wolsey quickly became the controlling force behind all matters of state, and when Pope Leo X appointed Wolsey Archbishop of York in 1515, he became the second most important cleric in England. Henry even appointed him the highest political post possible – Lord Chancellor – which is the king’s chief adviser.

Things proceeded well for about a decade, but Henry was young, egocentric, and distraught by the fact that his wife Catherine had not delivered him a son and heir. Catherine was older than Henry and nearing forty, Henry didn’t think he’d get a son out of her, and I imagine his bitterness grew. Simultaneously, he met and fell in love with another woman, Anne Boleyn, and he decided to rid himself of his wife. But how? He couldn’t have her killed. He couldn’t just sent the queen away. He’d have to divorce her, but divorcing someone meant you couldn’t marry another. That wouldn’t work. There was only one thing to do. He’d have the marriage annulled. There was only one HUGE problem. The Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine on the grounds that one can’t throw away a wife because one desires a different wife.

Well, Thomas Wolsey is so important in the church, let’s let him handle it. Surely he can convince the Pope to grant an annulment, especially for the freakin’ KING. OF. ENGLAND.

The divorce went on for years, and each passing message that Wolsey was getting nowhere with the Pope, enraged Henry even more. All for the love of Anne, Henry decided to split from the Catholic Church and become his own religious leader in his own newly formed Church of England. He would grant his own divorce and get rid of his wife. He also decided to get rid of the useless Wolsey. Anne had convinced Henry that Wolsey was slowing down the proceedings on purpose. In 1529, Wolsey’s fall from grace was sudden and total. He was run out of town and stripped of all his titles except Archbishop of York.

Within the year, Catherine was banished from the court. Wolsey was charged with treason and faced beheading. Fortunately for him, he died of natural causes en route to London to answer to the charges. Henry confiscated Wolsey’s Whitehall Palace and married Anne there in 1533.

If all that isn’t sick and twisted enough, Henry had Anne beheaded three years later.

I began researching my ancestry as a teenager. I knew my Culpepper line came to America from England in the 1600s, and I knew they were wealthy land owners with much prestige in the English court, but I didn’t understand why they would give all that up to sail to an inhospitable land full of savage Indians, facing the possibility of shipwreck, starvation, and death. How did those aristocratic people end up as the modest family I knew in my youth in Mississippi? The journey to find these answers became a series of four books about my 10th great-grandfather, John Culpepper.

Follow the series as John rebels against his father, the English civil war destroys the family, John ends up as the family patriarch in the colony of Virginia, and finally, as John comes to terms with his life and his past. The first book in the series is I, JOHN CULPEPPER. The subsequent books are JOHN CULPEPPER THE MERCHANT, JOHN CULPEPPER ESQUIRE and CULPEPPER’S REBELLION.

Here’s the opening chapter of I, JOHN CULPEPPER, setting the stage with his tumultuous relationship with his dad.

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CHAPTER 1

Fall 1626

“No! For the hundredth time, no!”

John looked down at the intricate grain of the walnut desk beneath his fingertips and shifted his weight to his other foot. He sighed, feeling his dreams disintegrate before his very eyes. The snap of the white sails, the taste of the salty spray on his lips, the smell of the tar that sealed the decks—the visions were quickly vanishing behind the thick fog of his father’s adamant disapproval. He pictured his mighty ship sinking into the black waters of condemnation, bubbling like a cauldron as it disappeared from sight. There was nothing he could do to change his father’s mind, and he wondered whatever possessed him to come to this man for assistance. He should have known better.

His father glared at John from behind the desk. He propped his elbow on the scrolled arm of the chair as his large hand methodically stroked his pointed beard. “Is there anything else?” he snapped.

John didn’t look up. He shook his head and mumbled, “No.” He turned and padded across the thick rug toward the door, listening to the man’s heavy breathing behind him. He reached for the brass doorknob, paused, and turned back. “You know I’ve always done everything you’ve asked of me. I went to school. I studied to be a lawyer. I did it all for you. I never wanted to practice law. I’d never be happy on the bench.”

“Happy? What makes you think life has anything to do with being happy? You are a Culpepper, and as such, you have an obligation to serve your family and your king in a manner befitting your station. This childish notion of owning a ship is nothing but rubbish.”

John released the doorknob and walked back toward his father’s desk. The intimidating man dwarfed the desk, his size exaggerated by the broad shoulders of his leather jerkin, yet he sat up taller in his chair in preparation for the quarrel to continue. It was a wasted gesture, as his opponent already knew the battle was lost.

John made sure he didn’t raise his voice. “Father, you have financed merchant ships for as long as I can remember. What difference does it make if I’m the one who owns the ship?”

“Culpeppers don’t own ships. I funded those expeditions as an investment—a losing investment, I might add.” He rose from his chair and his voice grew louder, echoing off the oak panels that lined the walls. “There has never been a Culpepper placed in a position of experiencing hunger and savages and shipwrecks, and there won’t be one now, not with my blood written on the purchase. I will not fund a ship for you, John, not now, not ever.” He pointed his finger in John’s face. “And if you somehow find a way to procure a ship, mark my words—I will disinherit and disown you. No son of mine will become a common sailor. I am finished with this conversation once and for all. Have I made myself clear?”

John exhaled, beaten. His shoulders slumped as he broke his father’s glare and dropped his eyes to the floor.

“John? Have I made myself clear?”

“Completely.”

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The recipient of 5-stars at Readers’ Favorite,I, JOHN CULPEPPER is available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon. CLICK HERE.

“In I, John Culpepper, you will be transported back to the time John lived and you will feel like you are a part of John’s life. The experience of reading this book was out of this world. … it is a magical experience and you will not want to miss it for anything! Amazing!” ~ Rabia Tanveer for Readers’ Favorite

Since “commencement” has to do with school or beginnings, I chose to write about my 10th great grandfather and his brother attending a law school in London, a place called Middle Temple. The photo is a drawing by Thomas Shepherd in 1830, but my guys attended there in 1621. The Honorable Society of Middle Temple is/was a prestigious law school in England, one of the five “Inns” where the rich kids attended. There are only four today, but they still boast the exclusivity of being the places where students are trained to become barristers or lawyers.

My grandfather, John Culpepper, was admitted ‘specially’ to Middle Temple on May 7, 1621 as “Mr. John Culpeper, second son of John Culpeper of Astwood, Worcestershire, Esquire.” His brother, Thomas, was admitted the same day as “Mr. Thomas Culpeper, son and heir apparent of John Culpeper of Astwood, Esquire.” John was fifteen. Thomas was nineteen.

Thomas graduated from the school and embarked on a professional career as a lawyer, but John did not pursue law, probably to the dismay of his lawyer father. John instead purchased a ship and became a merchant. His father did not help him with financing. It was his brother who stepped up to assist him. They named the ship the Thomas and John and John ran a successful merchant business between England and the Virginia Colony. There is some evidence he also sailed to Barbados.

The Inn at the time of their schooling consisted of a group of buildings like a campus, and most of the school is the same today. The center of inn life was Temple Hall (photo that looks like Hogwarts) which was used as a dining and meeting room. Today it is used for banquets and weddings. William Shakespears’s Twelfth Night reportedly had its first performance here in 1602.

There is also Fountain Court (photo), Temple Library, and Temple Church which was erected by the Knights Templar in the 13th century and still stands today.

Members of the gentry class, holding British properness and manners in high esteem must have risen to the occasion, learning the art of persuasion and rhetoric and arguing. One can only imagine the verbal sparring that took place at the time in this hall and around this fountain. Their words had so much more meaning than ours do today.

It is the story of young John Culpepper, whose only dream is to own a merchant ship. As you will see in the snippet below, his aristocratic father is not the most supportive. Some of the story occurs simultaneously with historical events we know well. The follow snippet happens on September 6, 1620.

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Fourteen-year-old John stood on the banks of the Thames and stared at her. She was the most majestic creature he had ever seen. He admired her pear shape, her curved lines. From the beak of her prow to the tip of her stern, she must have been nearly one hundred feet in length. Three masts towered above her decks and her white sails billowed, straining against their ropes. Fluttering atop her mainmast, the red-and-white English flag proudly announced her pedigree. She rode the gentle waves toward the English Channel, sailing into the rising sun. Her sharp silhouette stood in contrast to the backdrop of a clouded pink-and-purple sky.

“What are you looking at, boy?” his father bellowed from the carriage.

He pointed at the river as he turned. “Look at the ship, Father!”

“Stop gawking and get over here and unhitch these horses.”

“Yes, sir,” John mumbled. He trudged back toward the carriage, wondering why there wasn’t a footman or stable boy to take care of the animals. He walked around to the other side of the horses and wrapped his fingers around one of the halters.

He peeked around the horse’s nose, watching his father march through the puddles as he crossed the road toward the inn. His father’s long black cloak billowed behind him, caught by an unexpected breeze. John looked up at the sky. Last night’s storm clouds were dissolving and large pockets of blue sky were beginning to show through. When he looked back at his father, the man’s shadow was walking beside him, just as formidable as the real man.

Thomas appeared by John’s side and plopped their father’s large trunk on the ground at John’s feet. The horse jumped and John quickly released the halter.

Thomas complained under his breath, “You’ll never learn, will you? That’s not one of our ships sailing for the Virginia Company. That’s a competitor’s ship. Father isn’t interested in that ship. As a matter of fact, Father has lost so much money investing in these expeditions, he’s not interested in any ships or your fascination with them.”

“How much money?”

“What?” Thomas asked from the back of the carriage, where he was now retrieving another trunk.

“How much money has he lost?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he’s been waiting for shipments of timber from Virginia that never arrived. He said the men who sailed there were too busy trying to survive to cut any trees. So, each time a ship returns empty, Father loses money.”

“But money aside, how can he not love them? All of them. They’re beautiful. Imagine where that ship is heading, sailing off to some enchanted seaport. Silk from the Orient, cotton and tobacco from the colonies. I can picture it coming ashore in Virginia, where one can view rolling land as far as the eye can see, so much land and it’s nearly free for the taking.” John turned to gaze again at the ship as it rounded the bend of the river. He took a step away from the horses so he could see her better, if only for the next few moments until she disappeared.

“Don’t admire that ship too fondly. She’s not going to the Orient. She’s called the Mayflower and she’s going to Plymouth.” Thomas looked at the ship. “And she’s not so grand. As a matter of fact, she’s rather old. She’s already crossed the ocean quite a few times.” He looked back at John. “And why are you talking about rolling land? You’ll never own land.” He laughed as John struggled with the horse’s buckles. “Father will leave everything to me. You will be sent to Middle Temple to be trained as a lawyer, and someday you will oversee my estates.”

John gave up on the buckles and marched toward his brother. “I don’t want to oversee your estates. Oversee them yourself.”

In celebration of my upcoming April 10th book release, “I, John Culpepper,” I’m posting bits and pieces about the people and places you will read about in the Culpepper Saga. The four-book saga is based upon my 10th great grandfather, and most of the names and locations are real. The first three blogs about the story are available here, here, and here. This blog is about the homes John spent time in between 1606 and 1634.

Our hero, John Culpepper, was born into a very wealthy family. He was born at Greenway Court in Hollingbourne in the county of Kent. His family moved away when he was only five years old, but he eventually returned to the home when his brother Thomas married and set up house there. In the book, the old house drug up a lot of feelings and memories of John’s childhood that he had long forgotten. The home is still standing and is privately owned today.

From the age of five until he went away to law school, John lived at Astwood Court in Feckenham in the county of Worcester. The home originally belonged to his great uncle Martin and was left to his father. John’s mother died in the house when John was just a child. The home is still standing and is privately owned today.

As a young boy John spent many summers at his grandfather’s estate of Wigsell Manor in Salehurst, Sussex. The 600-acre property was the stuff boy’s dreams are made of. The home is still standing and is privately owned today.

John’s uncle Sir Alexander Culpepper owned Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent. Alexander inherited the house through his wife Mary, the widow of Sir Anthony St. Leger. In 1552, the house was granted to the St. Leger family, and following the Culpepper ownership 1632-1710, it was transferred into the Fairfax family through marriage. It was built in the early 1100s and was once the home of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. It is now open to the public as a tourist attraction. You can visit Leeds Castle’s website here.

John was born in 1565 in Salehurst, England in his father’s home, Wigsell Manor (pictured left). He was the second son, eventually totaling three brothers and at least one sister. He was seventeen years of age when he entered Middle Temple (a law school) and began a professional career as a lawyer, called to the bar in 1595, and listed as a Bencher in 1599.

He spent a lot of time at the home of his uncle Francis Culpepper (dad’s brother), whose home was Greenway Court (pictured right). Uncle Francis’s second wife was Joan Pordage. Her brother was Solomon Pordage, who died in 1599, leaving behind widow Ursula Woodcock Pordage. It was at Greenway Court where John first met the widow Ursula – probably before she was widowed as Uncle Francis died in 1591 and his wife Joan Pordage in 1598. John and Ursula didn’t marry until 1600.

John and Ursula set up house at Greenway Court while he ran a profitable law practice.

Within a few years, his uncle Martin (dad’s other brother) died in 1605. Martin had two sons, one who had died the year before, and the second who had no children of his own. John was bequeathed Astwood (pictured left) in trust to maintain for Martin’s widow. After the widow remarried and moved elsewhere, John made an arrangement with her to move Ursula and the family to Astwood. His family now totaled four children – Thomas, John (my 10th great), Cicely, and Francis. Sadly, Ursula died at Astwood and was buried there in June of 1612. He was now a widower with four small children, but apparently his law practice was doing well, as he bought out the aunt’s interest in 1616 and gave up practicing law to become a country gentleman.

That same year, he married Elinor Norwood. They had no children. She died eight years later in 1624. He then married Ann Goddard in 1625. She outlived him by ten years. Sometime before 1635, nearing the age of seventy, he returned to Greenway Court where he died 18 December 1635.